A Sight For Sore Eyes

When the opening notes on the solo piano start playing "Auld Lang Syne" you can be pretty certain that a Tom Waits song is on the way, and this came on the player today (I put it there so it's not magic like some people seem to attribute to iTunes, Dezzer and Spotify) and I have either forgotten it or not heard it before ... or maybe I have

... that melody playing I have heard before and then I realised it's the same as "In The Neighborhood", the song that hooked me on Tom Waits from the amazing "Swordfishtrombones". "A Sight For Sore Eyes" from "Foreign Affairs" predates "In The Neighborhood" by six years, but let's face it you're allowed to plagiarise or borrow from your own material.

I have been sharing quite a lot of Tom Waits recently and if you don't know his work you should really make the effort, you will be rewarded by one of the richest veins of songs by any writer, mined by Rod Stewart, Bruce Springsteen and The Eagles.

As he ages he does get further from the mainstream , but he was never really that mainstream, it's just that people with discerning taste appreciate the guy.

Anyway that's another gem I've shared with you and another post towards my #August50, and the sun is still shining very brightly.

A Favourite Rhyming Couplet

On my walk today a growling, sinister , pedestrian bass guitar came onto my headphones signalling the introduction to one of my favourite Half Man Half Biscuit songs, soon to be joined high pitched amaterish but efficient sounding guitars. The lyrics namecheck lots of seventies and eighties touchstones, "Jackie" magazine, Flintlock ,  Sade and T'Pau.

This is one of my many favourite songs of theirs documenting the minutiae of everyday mundanity. The album is "McIntyre, Treadmore and Davitt" named after three footballers in Michale Palin's "Ripping Yarns" episode "Golden Gordon" the synopsis of it is:

"Barnestoneworth United is the worst football team of 1935,who lose every match. Gordon Ottershaw is,however,their loyal fan,determined to prevent them from being disbanded after their final game. To this end he recruits the players from the renowned winning team of 1922 who turn up to defeat rivals Denley Moor."

The IMDB entry is here and the episode is here on youtube (this may be removed at some point).

Anyway back to the rhyming couplet that inspired this, it's from the final song "Everything's AOR Now" but actually links yuppies with 1960's wrestling. My grandma used to watch it every Saturday intoduced by Kent Walton featuring such stars as Mick McManus, Jackie Pallo and the subject of this couplet:

"She’s the main man in the office in the city
And she treats me like I’m just another lackey
But I can put a tennis racket up against my face
And pretend that I am Kendo Nagasaki"

And when that came on it did bring a smile to my face. The full lyrics are here . If you love it as much as me you can get it here and all Half Man Half Biscuit's recording here, and lots of free session here.

Enjoy my friends.
 

Summer Is Back

Several times this week people have said the equivalent of "so that was the summer", when in fact I lost count of the summery sunny mornings we've had this year. The sun is streaming through the window now. We are all subject to the weather and we don't want a drought situation so we need rain, and usually we get it at night which is fairly sensible. I think that the weather has only stopped me walking once, and that was in Pockley and I still got 2.5K steps in which is about half a kilometer, and it didn't affect my Million Step Challenge , it was just another sub 11K day.

It looks like I am sort of on track for the #August50 , but I still have to do two posts a day for most of August, but it is doable, but I am going to walk in today so expect to keep my steps up.

I really to appreciate the colours of nature on a day like this, often unfeasibly enhanced by the camera on my Sony Xperia XA, not always in a good way sometimes looking back it's like I'd been in the middle of Ben Wheatley's "A Field In England". If you know the film you will know why I said that, if you don't know the film film , watch it and find out. Incidentally it was released on all formats simultaneously, the TV broadbast being on Film4.

So I'm going with "Summer Means Fun" which I thought was by The Beach Boys, then remembered it was by The Fantastic Baggys, but someone said it the original was by Jan & Dean, but I found this excellent version by Bruce and Terry which I had never heard before, because, as far as I'm concerned, summer is still alive and kicking. Well that wasn't a grammatically correct sentence was it , but what the hell. Have a brilliant day and enjoy the sunshine!

Confirmation and Awestruck By James Holt - Deaf Rock and Roller

I was just thinking why is it easier for me to walk and hit targets. Many years ago you maybe had the mechanical, not very accurate pedometers, or you could ride a bike that had an odometer, but as I've said I can't do anything regimented, although some of the stuff I do at work requires a hell of a lot of precision , determination , accuracy and it is almost regimented, the sort of thing that i usually rebel against. The thing is, because I am controlling it, I can change it when I see a better way. I am just introducing some things that I haven't seen done before, and only discovered because I wondered if it could be done, tried it and found it could be done... but I digress as usual.

I think one of the reasons I do find it easier to do my walking is the hand held computers we call oor mobile phones can record and confirm what we are doing and where we are up to with it. Ten years ago you couldn't really do that, twenty years ago it was mechanical and not very accurate.

So I know how far I've gone, how far I have to go and I can check any time I want to or need to. I have had issues with software but Pacer seeems to be doing the business, although today my phone turned itself off, unbeknown to me so I lost a big chunk of recording my walks. Technology always finds another way to screw you over. ALthough I am no longer on the Million Step Challenge I intend to hit 340K a month so I still need to keep and eye on how far I am walking.

I have made an appointment with my Doctor and it will be great to get some positive feedmack on my weight loss and insulin reduction. My doctor is incredibly supportive and a great example of NHS brilliance, I'll tell you who she is if you ask me face to face.

I'm going to give you two songs, the amazing James Holt , a deaf rock and roller, his "Whatever Happened To John" reminding me of Bob Dylan's "Subterranean Homesick Blues", He is a revelation, a musician , a producer , plays all his own stuff, every instrument, and an inspiration to everybody. Listen and enjoy.

Prime Time

Reading "How Not to Be Wrong: The Hidden Maths of Everyday Life" by Jordan Ellenberg  and there are some complex concepts in there and we're talking prime numbers (or should that be Prime Numbers) and he make a stange but true point n and n+2 are more likely to be a pair of prime numbers than n and n+1.  Now given that after 1, 2 and 3 only odd numbers can be prime, it seems a strange point to make. 29 and 31 are prime but 30 isnt, 31 and 33 are not both prime but I think 131 and 133 are. It also talks about the apparent randomness of prime number distribution, which obviously cannot be random because the nature of numbers is set in stone ... sort of.

Below is one of my favourite TED talks on very large prime numbers by Australian DJ Adam Spencer. This talk held no interest for me, or so I though but it is a brilliant way to spend twenty minutes and you learn a lot as well.


So it's 7AM and we need a numerical song to go with it and what about The Jam's "Away From The Numbers" , my nay is spent dealing with numbers but there are times when maybe a rest would do me good

Here Comes The Night

Tonight it's cold and wet, the days are getting shorter and we'll soon be waking up in the dark as wll, looking out from our windows at work into the blackness, then looking at the clock and seeing that it's only three o'clock.

The think is , is this is the world we live in, days fluctuate like an giant elastic band getting longer and shorter depending what part of the year that we are in. Rain is good because it waters gardens and plants. Dark is good because it makes us appreciate the light, it the way that cold makes us appreciate the warmth.

I can't recall the weather being so bad that I wished for something else, for quite a long time. Tonight even though it was slightly raining , I put on my waterproof hat and walked for half an hour clocking up 3K steps. Tomorrow will be interesting to see how long Pacer keeps recording my steps as I expect. Will it clok 5K steps for me to get to work, I'm sure you can't wait to find out.

Anyway, the night is here so I'll leave you with "Here Comes The Night" by Them, sleep well my friends.

The Trouble With Shooting Ghosts of American Astronauts

A ridiculously rubbish play on words, in my last post I said that Google Fit didn't seem to be tracking steps, but was it my Sony Xperia, or the operating system or the software. Today I installed something called Pacer and it seems to be recording the steps OK so it looks like it's Google Fit.

It is a small trial when something is not working and you don't know which part of the chain is the problem , and it may be one part or more than one. Remeber when a bulb went in Christmas lights and trying to track which was this problem one. Though it does feel good when you sort it out.

Tonight I went out for an extra walk to hit my 11K, and I've done nearly 12K so that's cool.

Anyway as I type this "Ghosts of American Astronauts" by The Mekons is playing, just a lovely surreal song whihc I will leave you with. My blood sugar is down to 4.4 so I need to sort out something to eat.

Enjoy your evening my friends.